


Hands Clean

by cookiegirl



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Blood, Gen, Manipulation, Medicinal Drug Use, Night Terrors, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:10:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21908791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookiegirl/pseuds/cookiegirl
Summary: Another night, another night terror.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & Martin Whitly
Comments: 12
Kudos: 40
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Hands Clean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EmmaDeMarais](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaDeMarais/gifts).

It's midnight. 

Malcolm sits on the bed and looks at his nightstand, at the small plastic bottle that sits on it. It’s the same choice every night, and whichever decision he makes, it’s always wrong. 

If he doesn’t take the pills, he doesn’t sleep. At least, not for more than five minutes at a time.

If he takes the pills, he sleeps. And he doesn’t wake, he can’t escape from the dreams, until they’re too much, until they tip him over the edge and he comes to, screaming and thrashing and wishing he'd never closed his eyes.

Either way, the next day comes both too late and too soon. 

He’s gone three nights in a row now without them, though, and he’s had maybe four hours sleep total, mostly during the day. He's barely functioning. It’s time. He uncaps the bottle, closes his eyes, tips out the pills, swallows. Fastens the restraints around his wrists. 

And sinks.

_“Watch out for bears, Malcolm,” his dad says from somewhere behind him. It’s not a warning, though. His dad sounds… gleeful._

_“Bears?” Malcolm says, and he turns around in a circle, looking for them. There are none. There's nothing but trees, and trees, and trees. Stretching up into the sky, many times his height. He feels smaller than his ten years._

_“Dad?” he calls. _

_No reply. Just a sudden silence, the noises of the forest gone. The bird song, the rustle of the wind through the branches, the two sets of footsteps that have been following him: gone. _

_The silence grows louder; it starts to roar, it rushes around him. He calls for his dad again, but his voice is tiny, lost in the gaping maw of that silence._

_He turns, faster and faster, on the spot, searching the trees for his dad. They’re a blur now, green and brown and green and brown and green and -_

_“Malcolm!” his dad says, and the whirling world stops. Everything stops. His dad is in front of him, crouched down, sitting on his heels. Smiling. Inches away._

_His hands are on Malcolm’s upper arms. There are so many layers between them - his dad’s gloves, Malcolm’s shirt, Malcolm’s sweater, Malcolm’s jacket - but Malcolm can feel the coldness of his father’s skin against his own. _

_“Dad? Where’d you go?”_

_“Oh, Malcolm. Sweet boy. I’m always with you.” That smile, growing wider. Icy fingers holding him tight._

_“You said there were bears. Are there bears?” Malcolm asks. _

_“Oh, yes,” his dad says. “There certainly are.”_

_There’s a laugh from somewhere to the right of them. The other man is there. Brown boots, scuffed, thick with mud. Khaki trousers. Cable-knit jumper, also brown, and a jacket with patches on the elbows. And a face, but Malcolm can’t see it. The sun, suddenly, is in his eyes. He squints and looks away._

_“Will they hurt us?” Malcolm asks, and the other man laughs again. It echoes strangely, bounces off the trees._

_“The boy’s too young for this,” the man says. “Scaredy-cat.”_

_“The boy’s perfect for this,” his dad says. He moves his hand to Malcolm’s face, cups his cheek, strokes his thumb across the cheekbone, leaves trails of burning chill in his wake. “He’s just like me. Aren’t you, Malcolm?”_

_Malcolm stares at him._

_“Aren’t you, Malcolm?” his dad says again, and the weight of his thumb on Malcolm’s cheekbone is suddenly crushing._

_Malcolm nods, up and down, up and down. He doesn’t know if he does it by himself, or if it’s his dad moving his head. Helping him._

_“There’s no need to be afraid of the bears,” his dad says. “They’re just like us, too.”_

_“Hunters,” says the man to the right._

_“We’re hunting?” Malcolm asks. _

_“Of course we are,” his dad says. "Haven't you been paying attention?"_

_“What are we hunting?” It seems like an important question, but when he asks it, his father just laughs. _

_"Did you give him the knife?" the other man asks, and suddenly the ground shifts. Time shifts along with it. They're not in the thick of the forest anymore, but in a clearing, and it's nighttime. _

_And Malcolm has a scalpel in his hand. _

_It's dark, but there's a campfire crackling, spitting out sparks into the air, washing the clearing with flickering orange light. The fire's glow catches the metal of the scalpel. Malcolm holds it in his open palm, watching the flames turn it gold._

_"Feels good, doesn't it?" his dad says, though Malcolm can't see him, can't see anything but the fire and his own hand. "Feels like it belongs there. Hold it properly, Malcolm."_

_He turns the knife. Holds it by the handle, loosely. _

_"I told you…" says his father's voice, but he's not talking to Malcolm this time. He's talking to the other man. "He's a natural."_

_Malcolm looks up from the knife and his father's in front of him again, bending down. His features shift in the changing firelight. _

_"You are meant for this," his dad says. Malcolm doesn't know what he means, but he believes him. "It's time, Malcolm."_

_"Lucky boy," the other man's voice breaks in, and Malcolm searches for him in the darkness, but this time he's just a shape, just a shadow, out of reach._

_"I'm so proud of you," his dad says. "Hold it tighter." He puts his hand over Malcolm's hand, squeezes it until Malcolm's gripping the scalpel so tight it hurts, so tight it might not be a separate thing anymore, it might be part of him now. And the space between his hand and his father's disappears, until they are one._

_"You're going to be my hands," Malcolm's father says. "You're going to be me." _

_Malcolm looks down at their hands, twisted together, and they're dark - darker than they should be, even at night. Then the fire flickers, and he realises it's blood - _

_ it's_ blood - 

_ blood running between his fingers, soaking their joined fists, running to the ground in rivers, faster and faster now. And he doesn't know whose blood it is: his own, or his father's, or - _

_ or maybe it's from the woman whose screams are suddenly filling his head, louder and louder, and he doesn't know where she came from or where she is but she's screaming and screaming and there's so much blood and it's all, it's all on his own hands, and it won't stop, it won't stop, it won't -_

Malcolm jolts awake, his body hurling itself up from the bed, his hands fighting his restraints. His heart is pounding, chest about to burst with the pressure, and his breath is ripping itself from his lungs in hard, painful gasps. Screams are still echoing in his ears. 

It takes a few moments to slow his breath, to focus on the exercises his therapist taught him. He unbuckles the restraints as soon as he's able, and stares at his hands. Somewhere in the space between waking and remembering how to breathe, the dream has slipped away, leaving only the vague impression of woods. He reaches for it in his mind - there was something there, in the dream, something important that he hadn't remembered before - but the harder he tries to grasp it, the more it slithers away. It's a ball of yarn, and when tries to tug it toward him by its end, it unravels, until there is no ball left at all.

He sinks back against the headboard and checks the time. It's five o'clock. Five hours of sleep. Five hours trapped in those woods. He's not sure it was worth it. His hand is shaking.

He doesn't know how long he sits there, waiting for his hand to settle, but at some point the phone rings.

“Gil?” he says, making an effort to keep his voice steady. Steady and light.

“Morning, Bright. Didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No. No, I’m up.”

“Good. We’ve got a case, need you over in Tribeca. I’m on my way there now.”

“I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“Okay." Gil pauses, and Malcolm can hear his concern crackle down the line. "Listen, kid, this one’s… there are multiple bodies. It’s gonna be a rough one. Need you on top form today.”

“Got it.”

“You get some sleep last night?” 

Malcolm swallows. “Yeah, Gil. I got some sleep.”

“Great." Gil sounds genuinely relieved. "That’s great, kid.”

_Yeah,_ Malcolm thinks. _Great._

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Title inspired by Alanis Morissette.


End file.
